People of excellence go the extra mile to do what's right.

Don't do anything that you wouldn't feel comfortable reading about in the newspaper the next day.

Christianity makes of life a moral drama in which we play a starring role and in which the most ordinary events take on a grand significance.

Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour: England hath need of thee! . . . . . . Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart: So didst thou travel on life's common way In cheerful godliness.

Every church and believer must ask: What are we known for in the community? What do we represent?

By honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report.

Your life may be the only Bible some people read.

The Christian church in the U.S. is still strong numerically, but it has lost its decisive influence both in American public life and in American culture as a whole, especially in the major elite institutions of society.

We're Christians. We have to care what people think. The appearance of wrongdoing, remember? I'm not going to move in with you had have people think we're living in sin. What sort of witness would that be?

Nevertheless, secularity, like any good thing, can be overdone. In our zeal to laicize our piety, we shouldn't leave people guessing whether we're Christians. That would be every bit as unnatural as wearing a monk's habit over one's work clothes. Our secularity should never lapse into secularism.

Everything bad that they (the ungodly) can seize hold of in our life is twisted maliciously against Christ and His teaching. The result is that by our fault God's sacred name is exposed to insult. The more closely we see ourselves being watched by our enemies, the more intent we should be to avoid their slanders, so that their ill-will strengthens us in the desire to do well.

This was why I published the Institutes — to defend against unjust slander my brothers whose death was precious in the Lord's sight.